I am trying to gather all the materials that I will need to build my first camera. Since it is going to be a 4 x 5 I know that I can find used film holders for a reasonable price. However, I thought that it would look nice if I could make the film holders match the camera. After seeing the beautiful camera at http://rhoadescameras.bizland.com/Camera%20Creation/Camera%202/camera2.htm I decided to make mine out of walnut and maple (although it will be a field camera). I thought about making film holders out of the same materials. They would be a sandwich of walnut - maple - walnut. If I do this I would not want to paint them black as this would destroy the effect I am going for. The only concern I would have is whether the unpainted frame of the filmholder would reflect to much light back into the camera. The walnut part would be the only part which the light would hit. Do you think that the walnut would be dark enough without the black paint so that I would not have any problems from it? I believe that there would only be about 1/4" of the walnut exposed on all sides f the film.
 
With the recent talk about darkslides I believe I could find a suitable material for them. I am wondering, what kind of metal I shoud use for the insert that actually holds the film (I believe it is called a septum).
 
I appreciate any help that you guys can give me on this.
 
Kenith Ryan

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